Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Dreidel Garland

It is hard to believe but Hanukkah is less than 3 weeks away. Since the Jews follow a lunar calendar all of the holidays are early this year so it's already time to get started on your crafts. As many of you know I love garlands. I think they are very festive and look great hanging up. I wanted to do one for Hanukkah that the kids could help out with and I came up with this dreidel one.

All of the girls were able to cut out the dreidels but obviously the older they were the neater they came out (If you look at the last picture you will actually see a few of those less than perfect dreidels). The nice thing about a hanging garland is that you can get away with a less than perfect one. I do have to admit that I "cleaned up" some of the ones the girls did!

Felt (I have a weakness for the wool felt from Weir Dolls)
Rick rack (the wavy trim I used to hang the dreidels on)
Scissors
Paper
Pencil
Ruler
Tape measure
Pins
Glue gun or fabric glue

1. Figure out how long you want your garland to be and if it will be horizontal only or horizontal and vertical. Since I did both I measured out how long I wanted my horizontal section to be and marked the beginning and end of the section with a pins. I got 8 dreidles per yard horizontally and 6 dreidels per yard vertically.

2. Make a dreidel pattern using the pencil and the ruler. The square part of the dreidel was 2 1/2 by 2 3/4 inches and the handle was 1/2 inch by 1 1/4 inch.

3. Make a bunch of copies of the pattern since you will probably got through through them when you are cutting the felt out. This is especially true if your kids are helping out.

4. Cut out the pattern, pin to the felt and cut out the dreidel. You may need to cut out a few until you get into a rhythm. Cut out the amount of dreidels you need.

5. Lay a piece of wax paper down on a table or the floor and figure out where you want your dreidels to be on the rick rack.

6. Using a glue gun or fabric glue, glue the dreidels to the rick rack.

7. If you are going to be doing a mix of horizontal dreidels and vertical dreidels glue down the horizontal ones first (If you are using fabric glue wait until it dries). Then lay out where you want the vertical ones and glue those down.